


Perhaps Heaven

by scratchedandinked



Series: TMA Hurt/Comfort Week 2020! [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ace writer, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Internalized Acephobia, Kissing and Cuddling y'all, M/M, Self-Worth Issues, Touch-Starved, You could also read it as:, but also brief discussions of the body and body image
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26147815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scratchedandinked/pseuds/scratchedandinked
Summary: All Jon wanted was to be touched. Yes, it was human to bleed and be mortal, but it was more human to be touched; it was the only thing humanity had over being human. But of course, Jon was asking for too much to want to be touched as a human. Not to be groped or gripped or held and pulled. Touched with kind intent and careful intention, and the simple acknowledgement that it was their skin pressing against Jon’s. To tell him he was human enough to be pulled into someone else’s sensory reality.[Jon just wants to be held, and Martin is very willing to hold him.]HC Week prompts: Touch-starved, sharp
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: TMA Hurt/Comfort Week 2020! [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893754
Comments: 22
Kudos: 304





	Perhaps Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Again, while there is some vague/veiled internalized acephobia/intimacy problems, this all comes from my own experiences and is not a generalization of all ace people! Ace people ARE human and HAVE humanity, just some of us stumble on that hurdle a lot.  
> Carry on! x

Even before the Beholding, Jon hadn’t felt human for years. He knew very well that he _was_ human—caveats and technicalities aside—but he didn’t _feel_ it. He understood that his thoughts and understandings of the world were unique to humans as a species, and said nothing about his status and ability to be One That Is Human. Jon knew he was like everyone else—he didn’t exist as a solitary individual confronting faceless after faceless nobody that passed by him, as if they could stare right through him. Jon was real, he was human. But it wasn’t a matter of _is_ or _is not_. Jon felt so much _less_ than whatever baseline at which everyone else seemed to innately exist.

He felt like an implant. A sourly concocted mixture of feelings and troubles and interests and abilities shoved down onto earth to simply be a part of a larger machine. And not just in regards to serving the Eye—Jon very much didn’t _care_ about how achieving unwavering omnipotence might change his ability to call himself human with a straight face. Jon just felt _wrong_. Dug so deep in his own confusion and terror to his own _self_ that he’d never surface to meet the rest of the world.

Jon was human, but he didn’t like to treat himself as such. That felt too self-indulgent. It felt conceded to consider himself _“worthy”_ of immediate respect and value; that he should be able to say without hesitation that _no, he isn’t asking for too much_ _he isn’t full of contradictions and complications and annoying hyper-specific needs that are unrealistic for the rest of the “real” world to understand and—_

It had always been easier to deny himself in order to be the most present for _other_ people. Acknowledging Jon was human meant being one in relation to _other_ humans. He had to balance honoring his own needs as well as others—and typically got the balance wrong, according to said other humans—and found it easier to simply consider his own self a secondary, over-the-top version of what a person was supposed to be like.

All Jon wanted was to be touched. Yes, it was human to bleed and be mortal, but it was more human to be touched; it was the only thing humanity had over being human. But of course, Jon was asking for too much to want to be touched _as a human_. Not to be groped or gripped or held and pulled. Touched with kind intent and careful intention, and the simple acknowledgement that it was _their skin_ pressing against Jon’s. To tell him he was human enough to be pulled into someone else’s sensory reality.

To know that his body existed to someone else. It wasn’t just the thing Jon saw when he looked in the mirror, nearly forgetting he had eyes he could greet as well. Rather than just trying to find and feel his ribs, pushing and poking his hipbones, turning and twisting his torso, feeling shoulders for bone ridges—feeling like he was checking in with someone else every time he surveyed himself in the mirror, rather than greeting the front view of his own body. Jon wanted to know his body existed somewhere _else_ ; invisible and crafted in the fingertips of another person. Discontinuous and noticeably imperfect, but belonging to someone else, _too_. Jon wanted to share the body he was in, so it didn’t have to be alone anymore.

Humans were such social creatures and in cutting off his entire self from the world, Jon decided he just couldn’t be one anymore…

But living with Martin was a slight break from Jon’s routine. Martin liked to touch pretty much _everything_ : the walls as he walked through the hall, every spoon in the drawer until he found one with the right handle weight, the kettle to see if it was hot enough, his hair as he silently read, and usually Jon’s shoulders or back whenever he passed behind him in the kitchen or at the dining table. It was a loving touch, a graze of fingertips through three layers of clothing Jon’s skin was _craving_ to feel up close. To know at its full warmth and delicate pressure.

But Martin had picked up, and lovingly respected, that Jon really wasn’t very tactile in the same way. Combined with Jon having not physically slept in bed with another person in _easily_ five years, Martin’s slight introduction of touch was worse than if Jon had been left to simply dream about it. At least then, Jon could dry up his imagination but focusing _too hard_ on the exact feeling of another person’s hand. Once he ran out of sensory detail, Jon could retire from the idea. But now that he knew what Martin’s hands felt like—even through his sweater—it was a constant loop of fleeting, flashing _hope_.

Jon was human. Martin had declared it, silently and with all ten fingers.

* * *

The stack of statements piled up almost to Jon’s eyeline, all of them read—digested—and Jon could think only of getting into bed. He was aching and just wanted permission to rest. But the prospect of his bed was also lonely, and unrelentingly so. And as stepped out of the office to ready for bed, Jon couldn’t help but hear Martin in the other room, humming to himself, and doing the same.

The bed wasn’t meant for one person, so it couldn’t have been terrible to ask—to make use of it, right?

“Martin,” Jon eased his office door closed, giving himself one last spot of distraction.

“Jon?”

“Uh, I—would you… like to come to bed?” Jon stood awkwardly at the end of the hall, gripping the wall and waiting for Martin’s head to poke up above the couch. Jon heard Martin scramble for his glasses before a very startled, blushing face appeared. “I—I figured you’d like to sleep in a real bed.” Jon maintained his usual balance.

“No, I’m alright here. I won’t make you sleep on the couch.” Martin was taller but for some reason had rationalized that Jon got the bed in the other room.

“Well, see,” Jon shifted his weight between the front and back of his feet slowly. “I would also be in bed, too.”

“Oh.” Even the muted clap of Martin closing his book sounded shocked. “Oh, you want me to—yeah, sure. I’ll join you.”

Loitering at the end of the hall felt like waiting for punishment. Jon was at the edge of the opening between the thin, dim hallway and the bright, cozy living space. Just beyond the hall was by far the most comfortable place in the entire house, and Jon had closed it off, all to himself. All to his own aching bones and silent, weeping lonely moments. Standing at the edge of the dark and light of the house, Jon felt like he was inviting Martin into a poisoned place. He, himself, had grown immune without knowing, about to douse the one man he loved in stale shadows and stiff sleeping.

“Well, come on, don’t just stand there.” Martin said, approaching Jon. His hand reached out to him, but hovered just by his back. It slid away as he passed him and walked to the back bedroom.

Jon followed quietly, peeling off his socks and leaving them at the foot of the bed. Jon always slept on the side of the bed farthest from the door, and somehow Martin already knew this. Jon was able to climb into his side of bed without another awkward bargaining of things _he_ wanted, or things he just wanted to stay familiar and routine.

“Wait,” Martin said, holding the covers up and not yet sliding under. “So I don’t—Sleeping, yes?”

“Yes.” Jon nodded, folding his hands and resting them on the blankets, just over his stomach.

“Okay. Just wanted to make sure— Good night, Jon.”

Martin eased himself into bed. Beside Jon, the bed shifted and he could feel the warmth of Martin’s legs dangerously close to his own. There was something confronting and intimate and impulsive of feeling someone so close when neither of them could see it. Jon fought the impulse to brush his leg against Martin’s, to hook their ankles together, to acknowledge that Jon had no words but every intention of having a conversation with Martin.

“Martin?” Jon managed to speak before Martin clicked off the lights.

“Yes?”

“Would you—” It felt like Jon was creating new words, his mouth so dry and lips so unwilling. Martin had rolled back toward him expectantly, but patient. “Would you mind if… we laid together?”

“Aren’t we doing that right now?” Martin was defaulting to Jon, he knew, but it was incredibly infuriating to have to speak his own desires. That made them harder to deny.

“Yes, but I was wondering if you would like to… touch.” The word felt filthy, despite it was the one thing Jon was sure human were meant to do. They did it as a greeting, congratulations, affirmations, even to flesh out arguments.

“Sure. Here,” Martin sat propped up against the headboard, gently moving closer to Jon. Their legs still weren’t touching. He held his arm up, echoing the shape of Jon’s shoulders, inviting his form. “I’ll hold you.”

“W-What?” Never had such a great favor been offered with such nonchalance. It felt like a translation problem; Martin had spoken a language without knowing the words he was saying. Or rather, more accurately, Jon was the least skilled of the two in the communication, startled by his own misconception of a word still foreign to him in greater use. “Hold?”

“Why are you saying it like I’ve called you a baby?” Martin laughed, proving his proficiency.

“I did not, I— okay.” Jon caved to his own shortcomings. He braced his hands against the mattress and shifted his weight over to Martin.

Their legs touched and Jon tensed his breathing, not wanting to give the shock away. The warmth wasn’t a burn, but it was _heat_. It was the brush of humanity Jon had forgotten ran so deep that meeting it again was like opening his eyes for the first time, world changed but not at all different. Martin’s arm fit with startling comfort around Jon’s shoulder, his other hand holding Jon’s elbow and pulling his hips to rest beside his own.

"Why don’t you take these off?” Martin asked quietly, lifting his hand to tap the arms of Jon’s glasses. “So you can be comfortable—and I’ll be close enough to see.”

“I suppose, yes. Okay.” Jon agreed, ducking his head and letting his frames lift from his ears. The room shrank away and, as promised, Martin stayed brightly and solely in focus.

“How is that?” Martin asked. His hand returned to Jon’s elbow.

“Good… It’s good.”

To be touched and to be held with such stillness was a pronouncement of _life_. Jon was alive under Martin’s hands. But he also knew, living life without motion was to remain close to invisibility. Jon wanted to be seen, wanted to be human through the eyes and fingers of Martin.

“M-May I?” Jon reached for Martin’s hand, careful around fingers he only knew from echoed, muffled touch on his back or arms. They were more calloused than Jon thought, hard work coming through in the great lengths Martin took to keep them alive, in soul more than body. The toughest job, Jon had to honor.

“Of course.”

With a short grip, Martin loosened his hand, malleable and relaxed. Jon held the four of Martin’s fingers across his palm, running his thumb over the pads of his fingers. They were warm, and Jon half-expected to be worn. The things they had done, managed and fought through, were numerous and continuous. Jon felt guilty for not knowing their touch sooner. It was listening to a part of Martin that never stopped talking; it kept a quiet, running dialogue of the life he lived even when Jon wasn’t around. Hoping to hear it all, loudly and abundantly, Jon closed his hand around Martin’s fingers. His mid-knuckle cracked.

“Oh! Sorry, sorry!” Jon widened his grip immediately.

“No, it’s alright. They’re just like that.” Martin laughed, flexing his fingers and cracking a second knuckle. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Right.” Jon had his fair share of loud, creaking bones, but to hold them rather than house them felt like a breaking of a hearth, destroying a place that burned but offered only warmth. “Okay.”

“ _Is_ this okay?” Martin’s thumb was brushing back and forth over Jon’s arm. His knee nudged Jon’s leg, his foot below Jon’s and arching up to bump it.

“Yes. It is.”

“Being held isn’t meant to scare you.” It was a ridiculous conversation to _have_ to have said between two near-thirty-year-olds, but it was said with only sincerity. Martin was speaking over the chill that was shaking Jon’s hands, acknowledging the unease of comfort to those so used to pain.

“I know.” Jon did know, somewhere, but he was still so sure that injecting humanity into those without the capability to house it would be a poison.

Willing it like a shot directly to his heart, Jon lifted Martin’s hand and placed it flat against his chest. Martin’s fingers rested against Jon’s collar bone, the collar of his shirt stretched and hanging off to one side. Skeleton met flesh met delicacy met life met love. Martin fingers didn’t try to read the words running along the skin, dipping under the bone. Knowing the words were there, like words printed on a page able to be returned to, was enough for them both.

“You’re shaking.” Martin said quietly. The shiver had left Jon’s hands and now scattered over his chest. The skin tensed in a deep shudder; warming something so cold was a shock to every system Jon had.

“I won’t come apart.” Jon tried to joke, but there was no confidence to be found.

“I’ll keep you upright.” Martin squeezed Jon’s shoulder, reminding him he was curled into touch like it was a part of his own structure. Maybe it could be. “If you’ll let me.”

There was no non-committal way to tell Martin there was nothing Jon could deny him. Not when he felt so sharp and barbed in hands that only seemed to find the soft, human parts. Not when Martin seemed to _make_ the patches as he went, fingers grazing harsh scars as if they were soft, new skin. Being loved had never felt like such familiarity, despite being awakened.

“I love you, Martin.” Jon was thankful he’d taken off his glasses as he turned to face Martin. His vision selectively only held Martin’s touched smile and shining eyes in focus, while the rest was a blurred dark that held shadows of days that were alien to Jon then.

“I know. You don’t have to say it.”

“I want to. You deserve to be told openly. I—I’ve been so poor about being—”

“I’m not keeping a chart, Jon.” Martin’s hand left his collarbone and cradled the curve of Jon’s neck. “Love is equal but it doesn’t have to be the same. You tell me you love me all the time. You keep us safe and… trust me to share a bed with you.”

“ _Martin_ ,”

“I know you love me. And I hope you know I love you too.”

“Of course, of course I do.”

The warmth finally reached deep into Jon, his body jolting to hold Martin’s face. In turning, Jon allowed himself to truly be held. Unable to move without another moment of Martin able to be discovered and felt. Both arms were the safest cage Jon had ever known. The only other being the one around his lungs, missing a few bars but in no way freeing. Jon’s hands were eager to hold Martin’s face, but afraid to read the skin too clearly. To feel the blush in Martin’s cheeks, to know the crinkle by his eye when he smiled in a fleeting laugh before Jon ran his thumb over his bottom lip. Jon didn’t want to know the smile so close, not when he wanted to kiss Martin so badly. With such a trembling desire it bordered on curiosity and chilled fear.

To feel touch but not be the other hand was intoxicating. Jon had no control, but the trust to know that it was all kind; smoothing over his skin like laying wallpaper and not tearing the studs and fountain up with torn, raw, shredded fingers.

"I miss you" Jon said suddenly. He didn’t know what he was talking about, or where it was coming from, but it was clearest he’d ever thought.

"I'm right here " It was a reassurance rather than a correction. Martin had understood some part of it. Some part of Jon, he supposed.

"Where did you go?" Jon felt delirious. Jon was babbling. Jon was so rattled inside and out Martin _must've_ wanted to laugh at him. "I miss you so much."

"Jon," He expected Martin to be scolding, but instead he seemed to stop there. "I'm here, I'm here." It was almost an incantation. An invitation.

Jon elongated his back, his chest swelling with a short gasp, as he pulled himself up to kiss Martin. He fumbled with the sensation, with the movement, until Martin kissed back. Jon’s instincts were limited as they were, but more so kept down and shut off from a stronger force that denied it was an instinct he’d ever need. They had kissed before, and each time Jon forgot how Martin kissed: sharp and urgently but with a languid calmness that made Jon sure that Martin was there _with_ him not just _on_ him.

“You’re real.” Jon thought about crying, but couldn’t humor the thought. It was too overwhelming to admit. “You’re here.”

“Oh, Jon,” Martin said quietly, without an ounce of pity. “where did you think I’d go?”

“Somewhere I couldn’t reach.” Somewhere only humans were allowed. Perhaps heaven. “But I’ve got you—in my own hands.”

Jon was begging to be Atlas. He wanted to grip the entire world in his own ten fingers, wanted to feel its pulse alongside his own. He wanted to hold it simply to behold such wonder—with the ability to absolutely destroy him, if it desired.

But that was a foolish desire; Martin would never harm Jon. Never rest on his back as punishment, something Jon had duty to support or as great eternal retribution. Jon held his entire world in his palms, and greeted it with a kiss and warm humanity that pulsed through him from his fingertips down to his toes. His world was bright and smiling. Never had the world appeared as such a gift, and life a means by which to experience every moment of it—Jon knowing he was human, and loved by one too.


End file.
